Come to Me
This week we look at the Parable of the Great Feast. This parable comes in the midst of several other parables concerning various aspects of dining and eating one of the main themes, as it turns out, in the gospel stories. Sometimes it seems that Jesus and his disciples were just going from one dinner party to the next. And perhaps they were. What a better way to have open conversations with others, to be actually living out in real time, what they were trying to teach.
And I suppose that is what our Sunday Morning Podcasts are, places to begin conversation - with one another, with others in the community, within our own spirits. So, listen and enjoy.
Below are the songs from the podcast for your listening pleasure.
This week’s call to worship
To Bless the Space Between Us
A Morning Offering, John O’Donohue
I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.
All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.
I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
“When you regain a sense of your life as a journey of discovery, you return to rhythm with yourself. ”
What is a spiritual practice?
A spiritual practice is an on-going discipline that you put in place in order to build and further your spiritual wellness. They enhance your faith journey. They can be as particular and specific as your own life. They are important because without them, it is difficult to enrich your relationship with God.
The term spiritual discipline has a particular meaning that refers to the opening of one’s spirit to the working of God, or the placing of oneself in the way of grace, grace as unmerited gift of spiritual understanding. Henri Nouwen writes: In the spiritual life, the word discipline means ‘the effort to create some space in which God can act.’
Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you are not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you had not planned or counted on.”
A goodie for you
Krista Tippett from On Being:
No conversation we’ve ever done has been more beloved than this one. The Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher insisted on beauty as a human calling. He had a very Celtic, lifelong fascination with the inner landscape of our lives and with what he called “the invisible world” that is constantly intertwining what we can know and see. This was one of the last interviews he gave before his unexpected death in 2008. But John O’Donohue’s voice and writings continue to bring ancient mystical wisdom to modern confusions and longings.